How to Improve SEO – 10 SEO Techniques to Boost Your Rankings

According to Hubspot, 61 percent of marketers say improving SEO is their top inbound marketing priority. Why? Because search engines are now a crucial part of the modern consumer’s buying journey. How to improve SEO is no longer a question only e-commerce sites are looking to answer. Google receives 63,000 searches every second, and 46 percent of all searches are local. Brick-and-mortar businesses in every niche can now reap the benefits of search engine optimization.

10 SEO Techniques to Improve Rankings

The following are 10 SEO techniques you can use to improve your SEO strategy and ultimately get more business.

1 – Do an SEO audit to See Your Current SEO Performance

The strategies you use to improve your SEO depend on your current SEO performance. There are tools available, such as SEO Screaming Frog or Moz’s suite of tools, which crawl your site for key SEO factors and give you the data you need to measure the health of your SEO strategy. An SEO audit looks at a website’s:

Pages

Keyword density

Title tags

Inbound links

Outbound links

Doing an SEO audit will show you which keywords you should focus on if you don’t have a clear keyword strategy.

2 – Analyze Your Competitor’s Keywords and Steal the Best Ones

Another way to improve your keyword strategy is to see which keywords your competitors are targeting. SEMrush is the tool of choice for many SEO experts. It allows you to see which keywords a site is ranking for, and which page they rank on for a given keyword. Do a quick Google search to identify your biggest competitors. Then, use a tool like SEMrush to see the keywords most similar to keywords already targeted in your SEO strategy.

Bring these keywords into your content creation strategy. The idea is to create better content for these keywords as a sneak attack on your competitors. You can also update old blog posts to include your new keywords.

3 – Update, Improve, and Republish Old Blog Posts

Smart marketers don’t let good content go to waste. Just because you hit publish doesn’t mean what you wrote is set in stone. You should always be analyzing your content and looking for how to improve its SEO performance. Here are some ways to improve old blog posts:

If you need ideas for how to improve your SEO for blog posts, Google your primary keyword and see what the top result has that your post doesn’t.

4 – Optimize Your Content With RankBrain in Mind

RankBrain, launched in 2015, is a machine learning algorithm Google designed to measure how users interact with the first results page. In 2016, Google executive Andrey Lipattsev confirmed in an interview that the top three ranking factors are content quality, backlinks, and RankBrain.

While Google hasn’t officially disclosed how RankBrain works, one important factor is a site’s organic click-through rate. Your meta title and description are what drives your click-through rate. Consider numbers in your title and description whenever possible, and include a direct call-to-action when you can. Describe how the user will benefit from clicking through to this piece of content.

Another important RankBrain factor is a page’s bounce rate. Google reasons that the longer a visitor stays on the page, the more valuable the content. You need to hook your reader within the first 100 words to keep them reading. Every reader asks themselves “ what’s in it for me?” Answer this question as soon as possible.

5 – Analyze Adwords Ads to See Which Meta Descriptions Get the Most Clicks

You want to treat your meta descriptions like they are ad copy for Google Adwords.

Adwords chooses pay-per-click bids for keywords based in part on an Ad’s click-through-rate. Analyze the meta descriptions of the top-performing ads for your keywords and compare them to your meta descriptions. Make tweaks using this analysis.

6 – Address Broken Links

As we discussed earlier, backlinks are one of the most important search ranking factors. Check the links you have on other sites periodically to make sure it takes you to the right page on your site. Also, check that your outbound links still work.

If you find any pages returning a 404 error, you need to fix the issue as soon as possible. Google thinks sites with many 404s are old and outdated.

7 – Optimize Your Contact Us Page

You contact page is a key part of your digital marketing funnel. Research by Hubspot shows 71 percent of customers search for directions to a business before visiting for the first time. If you don’t have updated contact information, then you’re losing out on customers. Be sure to include your:

Phone number

Street address

Email address

Written directions

8 – Put More Effort into Mobile Optimization

Data from Google shows that there are more mobile searches than desktop searches in the United States and nine other countries. Most business owners think of their mobile site as an afterthought, though.

What does the mobile version of your site look like right now? Think like your customer. Are you getting just as good of an experience as you would on desktop?

9 – Improve Your Link-Building Strategy

Improving your link-building strategy is one of the most effective SEO techniques to improve ranking. Getting links from other webmasters may seem tough, but all it takes is commitment, consistency, and quality content.

It comes down to the simple law of averages. You will land more links if you identify and explore five guest-post opportunities a day instead of only one a day. Make a goal to increase your number of backlinks each month for the next three months.

10 – Grow and Strengthen Your Community on Social Media

When it comes to how to improve SEO, social media is rising in importance. When people with large followings share your content on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, it signals to Google that the content is relevant. All three of these platforms have their algorithm for amplifying content that gets the most engagement.

You can use influencer marketing to pay people with large followings to endorse your content, but social shares are much more powerful if they come from people you took the time to build relationships with. Consider interacting with your community from your personal account so they can put a face to the brand.

How to Improve SEO – Final Thoughts

If you don’t start treating SEO as a priority in your marketing strategy, you will continue to lose out on potential business. To recap, the 10 SEO techniques covered in this article are as follows:

Do an SEO audit to See Your Current SEO Performance

Analyze Your Competitor’s Keywords and Steal the Best Ones

Update and Republish Old Blogs

Optimize Your Content With RankBrain in Mind

Analyze Adwords Ads to See Which Meta Descriptions get the Most Clicks

Address Broken Links

Optimize Your Contact Us Page

Put More Effort into Mobile Optimization

Improve Your Link-Building Strategy

Grow and Strengthen Your Community on Social Media

Most busy entrepreneurs like yourself don’t have the time to get the most out of these SEO techniques. If you want experts in your corner to make sure you’re getting every lead possible from search engines, contact us for a free consultation today.

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Brett Pucino is a content writer with seven years of experience crafting compelling copy for brands looking to expand their digital footprint. He is passionate about building brands for both businesses and people, and he is always available for a conversation on Twitter (@BPucino).